


Scars

by Whovian33



Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: BAMF Tris Prior, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Scars, Slow Burn, Tags Are Hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 07:51:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18090371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whovian33/pseuds/Whovian33
Summary: "The marks humans leave are too often scars."-John GreenTris was attacked by a few Factionless men when she was younger and they left her scarred (in more ways than one). The only good thing that came out of her attack were her new friends.*Better Summary Inside*





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Obviously I do not own the Divergent Trilogy, just this particular storyline and a few characters. All credit goes to Veronica Roth.
> 
> Please let me know if anyone is interested in reading anymore. If no one is, I'm not going to waste my time writing it.

   Beatrice was eight when the attack happened.

    She had been walking home after missing the school bus. She had purposefully been late to avoid Caleb. He had scolded her earlier for not sharing a toy and she was sulking.

    There were three attackers, all men, and all Factionless. When they were done with her, they left her to die.

    She didn't. She clung to life desperately for hours, hoping that someone might find her. It was her father who finally did. He had grown concerned when enough time had passed for her to be able to make her own way home and she still hadn't arrived, so he set out on the path she would have taken home. He would have passed right by the alley way they had hidden her in of he hadn't heard her crying.

    He ran her to the nearest doctor and stayed with her throughout the procedure, giving her a transfusion of his own blood to keep her alive. 

    The entire family was distraught for weeks. Andrew wanted to go to the Council and order them to allow the Dauntless to patrol the Factionless, but Beatrice begged him not to. She didn't want anyone to know what happened to her. So they kept it a secret. Only six people knew of the incident and, of those six, only four knew the whole truth: Beatrice, both of her parents, and the doctor who had saved her life. Caleb knew, but only because he lives in the same house. The only person Beatrice told was her best friend, Tobias.

    As the children of members of the Council, they often attended social events. Beatrice noticed Tobias always sticking to the outskirts and wanted to find out why. She was the only person that he couldn't scare away, even though she was two years younger than him. Beatrice started to spend the night at his house as often as possible, to keep his father at bay. She knew about all of his scars, so she thought it was only fair that he knew about hers, too.

    After Beatrice had healed, Natalie contacted an old friend in Dauntless. Twice a week, the mother and daughter disappeared to meet up with Natalie's friend, Anna, and Anna's son, Tyler, to train in self defense. Tyler and Beatrice became fast friends and she eventually told him, and his mother, her secret. The two Dauntless redoubled their efforts to help her learn how to defend herself.

    They moved their sessions to an abandoned warehouse that they built up over time. They added a punching bag, created an obstacle course, and set up a shooting range.

    The training had a major effect on Beatrice, or Bea as Tyler called her. She shed her remaining baby fat and replaced it with muscle. She became a master marksman, and learned how to take care of the weapons so that they could take care of her. On days that she didn't meet Tyler and Anna, she woke up extra early to run on her own and did whatever workout she could manage within the confines of her room.

    After a while, she even worked up the courage to sneak into Dauntless with Tyler and go dancing. They put her in black clothes and no one even noticed there was an Abnegation among them.

    Her parents taught her to embrace the faction that she was so obviously made for, while keeping up an Abnegation front so as to not draw attention to herself. Tobias eventually transferred to Dauntless, and the year after that Tyler got caught up in his own initiation.

    She had a year of being alone at school, but she survived, and now it was time for the Choosing.


	2. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The usual disclaimer. I don't own Divergent, Veronica Roth does.
> 
> Please let me know if you guys are interested in me continuing this story!

    There was only one mirror in my house, Abnegation rules. It was hidden behind a sliding panel in the upstairs hallway. Faction rules allowed me to stand in front of it on the second day of every third month, the day my mother cut my hair. I sat on my stool while me mother stood behind me, trimming. When she finished, she pulled my dull blonde hair back and twisted it up into a knot. I had to note how calm and focused she was. She was well practiced in the art of losing herself, as every good Abnegation was.

    I, however, was not. I snuck a look at myself while she wasn't paying attention. I wasn't being vain, but I was curious. A lot can change in three months. Unsurprisingly, not much had. My baby fat had long since faded away due to training that no other Abnegation girl received. Our sessions weren't against the law, but it wasn't commonplace so we never discussed them in public.

    My grey-blue eyes studied my own features. My thin face and angled nose weren't classically beautiful, but Anna always said I was gorgeous. I didn't really see it.

    My mother's eyes, green instead of blue, met mine in the mirror. If she'd been anyone else I would have been scolded for daring to look at myself, but she smiled.

    “Today's the big day,” she said.

    “Yes,” I replied, smiling back at her.

    “Are you nervous?”

    I contemplated the question. It was the day I would take the aptitude test and learn where I truly belonged.

    “A little, but I think I know what I'm going to get,” I said. “Or, at least, I know what I'm choosing regardless or the results.”

    She rested her chin on my shoulder for a moment and I almost started at the unexpected contact. “We're going to miss you.”

    I knew she wasn't just talking about me. Caleb, my brother, had made it obvious that Erudite called his name. Unsurprising, since it was our father's birth faction.

    “You don't think it makes me selfish?” I asked.

    “No,” she denied. “I think it makes you brave. Let's go eat breakfast.” She said the panel back over the mirror as she kissed me on my cheek.

    “Thank you for cutting my hair.”

    On those mornings, when Caleb made breakfast and my father's hand skimmed my hair as he read the news paper, and my mother hummed while we cleared the table, on those mornings was when I felt guiltiest about wanting to leave them. I wished both of my parents a good day before Caleb and I left for the bus.

    Everytime the bus hit a patch of uneven pavement it jostled me from side to side, even though I held on to the seat to keep myself still. Caleb stood in the aisle, holding a bar above his head to keep himself on his feet. We didn't look alike. He has my father's dark hair and hooked nose and my mother's green eyes and dimpled cheeks. When he was younger the collection of features looked odd, but he grew into it. It suited him. The girls at school would probably stare if he wasn't Abnegation.

    He also inherited my mother's talent for selflessness. He'd given his seat to a surly Candor man without a second thought. The man wore a black suit with a white tie, Candor's standard uniform and very different from the Abnegation grey I was used to. Cador valued honesty and saw the truth as black and white, so that was what they wore.

    The gaps between the buildings narrowed and the roads we're smoother as we reached the heart of the city. The building that was once called the Sears Tower (we called the Hub) emerged from the fog, a black pillar in the skyline.

    The bus passed under elevated tracks. Despite all of my time in Dauntless, I'd never been on a train, but that would change tomorrow. Dauntless initiates had to jump on to a moving train as part of the initiation process, but that was all Ty would tell me. He just kept repeating, “Never be afraid to jump.”

    Five years prior, volunteer construction workers from Abnegation repaired some of the roads. They started in the heart of the city and worked their way outwards until they ran out of materials. The roads where I lived we're still cracked and patchy, and it wasn't safe to drive on them. We didn't have a car anyway.

    Caleb's expression was placid as the bus swayed and jolted on the road. His grey robe fell from his arm and he clutched a pole for balance. I could see his eyes flashing at the people around us. He might not be Abnegation for much longer, but he was still trying to see them and not think of himself. Candor might value honesty, but Abnegation was all about selflessness. I stood next to him and lifted up onto my tiptoes to whisper into his ear.

    “Sit down before you hurt yourself. Your people watching will be easier from a seat.”

    He offered a semi-apologetic smile for his ways, but took the proffered seat regardless.

    “Thank you, Beatrice.”

    The bus stopped at the school and I scooted past the Candor man, grabbing Caleb's arm as he stumbled over the man's shoes, apologizing profusely.

    The Upper-Levels building is for the oldest of the three classes of students: Lower-Levels, Mid-Levels, and Upper-Levels. Like all of the buildings surrounding it, it was made of glass and steel. In front of it was a large metal sculpture that the Dauntless climbed after school, daring each other to go higher and higher. Last year I watched one of them fall and break their leg. I was the one who ran to get the nurse.

    “Aptitude Tests today,” I said. Caleb wasn't quite a year older than I was, so we were in the same year at school.

    He nodded as we passed through the front door. My muscles tensed as soon as we walked in. The atmosphere was hungry, like every sixteen-year-old was trying to devour as much as they could on their last day. It was likely that we would never walk the halls again after the Choosing Ceremony -- once we chose, our new factions would be responsible for finishing our education.

    Our classes were cut in half today so that we attended all of them before the Aptitude Test, which took place after lunch. I was nervous despite the fact that I already knew my choice.

    “You aren't at all worried what they'll tell you?” I asked Caleb.

    We paused at the split hallway where he would go one way, toward Advanced Math, and I would go the other, toward Advanced Anatomy.

    He raised an eyebrow. “Are you?”

    I could have admitted that I was. I knew where I was going, but it would have been nice to know that I was actually making the right choice.

    Instead I smiled and said, “Not really.”

    He smiled back and some of my nerves evaporated. “Well… Have a nice day, Beatrice.”

    “Caleb,” I called as he walked away. He turned back to face me, confused. “I just… You have a nice day too.” No sense in making him worry.

    I walked away towards Anatomy, chewing on my lower lip when I realized that he never answered my question.

    The hallways were cramped, but the light coming through the windows created the illusion of space; they were one of the only places where the factions mixed, at our age. Today the crowd had a new kind of energy, a last day mania.

    A girl with long curly hair shouted “Hey!” next to my ear, waving at a distant friend. I ducked out of the way of her jacket sleeve only to be shoved from behind by an Erudite in a blue sweater. I nearly fell, but I caught myself on the wall.

    “Out of my way, Stiff,” he snapped, and continued down the hall. My temper flared and I longed to punch him in his exposed kidneys, but I'm pretty sure that everyone thought that the flush in my cheeks was from embarrassment. Stiffs didn't get angry.

    A few people stopped to watch, but none offered to help me. Their eyes followed me to the edge of the hallway. That sort of thing had been happening to others in my faction for months. The Erudite had been releasing antagonistic reports about Abnegation, and it had begun to affect the way we related at school. The grey clothes, the plain hairstyle, and the unassuming demeanor of my faction we're supposed to make it easier for us to forget ourselves, and easier for everyone else to forget us too. Instead, they were making us a target.

    I would have spoken to Tyler about it, but I hadn't seen him in a month. It might've been for the best though. He would have just told me to give anyone that gave me problems a broken rib or two for their trouble. Still, I missed him. It was the longest we'd gone without seeing each other since we'd met and with Tobias off in Dauntless as well, I had no other friends. Not being able to speak with them had made it all the more difficult to keep my secret. I was worried that if I spoke too much to anyone else, I would give something away.

    I paused by a window in the E Wing and waited for the Dauntless to arrive, a habit from when Tyler still attended school. At exactly 7:25, the Dauntless proved their bravery by jumping out of a moving train.

    My father referred to the Dauntless as “hellions”. They are usually pierced, tattooed, and black-clothed. “But I wouldn't love either of you less if they were the faction you chose,” he made clear to me and Caleb. I wonder who  _ that _ had been directed at…

    Now that they weren't policing the Faction less, their main purpose was to guard the fence that surrounded our city. They should have perplexed me -- I should have wondered what piercings had to do with bravery or courage -- but in my time with Ty and Anna, I'd gotten used to it. My eyes clung to them wherever they went.

    The train whistle blared, the sound resonating in my chest. The light fixed to the front of the train clicked on and off as the train hurtled past the school, squealing on iron rails. And as the last few cars passed, a mass exodus of young men and women in dark clothes hurled themselves from the moving cars, some dropping and rolling, others stumbling a few steps before regaining their balance. One of the boys wrapped his arms around around a girl's shoulders, laughing.

    Watching them was a useless practice, but it was entertaining. I turned away from the window and pressed through the crowd to the Anatomy classroom.


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do NOT own the Divergent Trilogy. Obviously.  
> Also, I'm not beta'd. It's just me working on this.

Anatomy, Psychology, Advanced Mathematics… All of my classes sped by. Lunch was there before I knew it. We sat at the long tables in the cafeteria, and the test administers called ten names at a time, one for each testing room. I sat next to Caleb and across from our neighbor, Susan.

Susan's father traveled throughout the city for his job, so he had a car and drove her to and from school every day. He offered to drive us, too, but as Caleb said, we preferred to leave later and didn't want to inconvenience him. Caleb fits really well into Abnegation for someone that wanted to switch factions.

The test administers are mostly Abnegation volunteers, although there is an Erudite in one of the testing rooms and a Dauntless in another to test those of us from Abnegation, because the rules state that we can't be tested by a member of our own faction. The rules also say that we couldn't prepare for the test in any way, so I didn't know what to expect.

My gaze drifted from Susan to the Dauntless tables across the room. They were laughing and shouting and playing cards. At another set of tables, the Erudite chattered over books and newspapers, in constant pursuit of knowledge.

A group of Amity girls in yellow and red sat in a circle on the cafeteria floor, playing some sort of hand-slapping game involving a rhyming song. Every few minutes I heard a chorus of laughter from them as someone was eliminated and made to sit in the center of the circle. At the table next to them, Candor boys made wide gestures with their hands. They appeared to be arguing, but it couldn't have been serious because they were still smiling.

At the Abnegation table, we sat quietly and waited. Faction customs dictate even idle behavior and supersede individual preference. I doubted all of the Erudite wanted to study all of the time and all of the Candor enjoyed a lively debate, but they couldn't defy the norms of their factions any more than I could at that time.

Caleb's name was called next. He moved toward the exit confidently. I didn't feel the need to wish him luck or assure him that he shouldn't be nervous. Everyone in our house knew where Caleb belonged. He was very good at playing the little Abnegation boy (my first memory of him was when he scolded me for not giving some little girl my jumprope on the playground when she didn't have anything to play with) but I knew about the books hidden in his room. He didn't lecture me anymore. There was no point when we both knew we were transferring.

My stomach wrenched at the thought of not seeing him every day. I closed my eyes and kept them closed until my name was called nearly ten minutes later, when Caleb sat down again.

I gave him a questioning glance. He wasn't allowed to tell me what he got, but the twinkle in his eyes was explanation enough. He got Erudite.

An Abnegation volunteer spoke the next round of names. Two from Dauntless, Erudite, Amity, Candor, and then, “Abnegation: Susan Black and Beatrice Prior.”

I got up because I was supposed to, but if it were up to me I would have stayed in my seat. I felt like there was a bubble in my chest that expanded more by the second, threatening to break me apart from the inside. I followed Susan to the exit. The people we passed probably couldn't tell us apart. We wore the same clothes and wore our blonde hair the same way. The only way we differed was body shape and it wasn't as if anyone could see those through our grey robes.

Waiting for us outside of the cafeteria was a row of ten rooms. They were only used for aptitude test, so I'd never been inside of one. Unlike the other rooms in the school, they were not separated by glass, but by mirrors. I watched myself, pale and nervous, walking to one of the doors. Susan grinned nervously at me as she walked into room five and I walked into room six, where a Dauntless woman waited for me.

She wasn't as severe looking as the young Dauntless I'd seen. She had small, dark, angular eyes and wore a black blazer - like a man's suit - and jeans. It was only when she turned to close the door that I saw a tattoo on the back of her neck; a black-and-white hawk with a red eye. If my heart hadn't been in my throat, I would have asked her what it signified.

Mirrors covered the inner walls of the room. I could see my reflection from all angles; the grey fabric obscuring the shape of my back, my long neck, my calloused knuckles, my pale face. The ceiling glared white with light. In the center of the room was a reclined chair, like in a dentist’s office, with a machine next to it.

“Don't worry,” the woman said. “It doesn't hurt.”

Her hair was black and straight, but in the light I could see it was streaked with grey. Not from age, she had dyed it.

“Have a seat and get comfortable,” she said. “My name is Tori.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Tori,” I replied quietly, sitting down and reclining against the headrest. Tori busied herself with the machine to my right. I tried to focus on her and not the wires in her hands.

“Why the hawk?” I asked as she attached an electrode to my forehead.

“Never met a curious Abnegation before,” she said, raising her eyebrows at me 

I offered up an apologetic smile. “I've never been the perfect Abnegation.”

Humming a little, she pressed another electrode to my forehead and explained, “In some parts of the Ancient World, the hawk symbolized the sun. Back when I got this, I figured if I always had the sun on me, I wouldn't be afraid of the dark.”

“Are you still afraid?” I asked, making sure there was no trace of a condescending tone in my voice.

“No,” she smiled softly. She pressed the next electrode to her own forehead and attached a wire to it. “Now it reminds me of a fear I've overcome.”

She stood behind me. I squeezed the armrests so tightly that my knuckles turned white. She tugged wires toward her and attached them to me, to her, and to the machine beside her. Then she passed me a vial of clear liquid.

“Drink this,” she said.

“What is it? What's going to happen?” I asked.

“Can't tell you that. Just trust me.”

I snorted a bit at that, but tipped the contents into my mouth and closed my eyes.

Only an instant had passed when I opened them again, but I was somewhere else entirely. I stood in the school cafeteria again, but all of the tables were empty, and I saw through the glass walls that it was snowing. On the table in front of me were two baskets. One held a hunk of cheese, the other held a knife the length of my forearm.

Behind me, a woman's voice said, “Choose.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Choose,” she repeated.

I looked over my shoulder, but no one was there. I turned back to the baskets. “What will I do with them?”

“Choose!” She yelled.

When she screamed at me, my fear and confusion were replaced with stubbornness. I scowled and crossed my arms.

The baskets disappeared. I heard a door squeak behind me and turned to see who it was. I saw not a “who” but a “what”; a dog with a pointed nose stood a few yards away from me. It crouched low and crept toward me, its lips peeling back from jagged, white teeth. A growl gurgled deep in its throat, and I saw how the cheese could have come in handy. Or the knife. But it was too late.

I thought about running, but the dog would be faster, even with my training. I couldn't wrestle it to the ground. It had teeth and claws. I had to make a decision. If I could've jumped over one of the tables I might've been able to use it as a shield, but there was no guarantee I'd have the strength to tip the table over.

The dog snarled, and I could almost feel the sound vibrate in my skull.

Then I remembered. My biology textbook the previous year had said that dogs could smell fear because of a chemical secreted by human glands in a state of duress, the same chemical a dog's prey would secrete. Smelling fear leads them to attack. The dog inched toward me, its nail scraping the floor.

So I couldn't run and I couldn't fight. What else did I know about dogs? I shouldn't look it in the eye. That was a sign of aggression. I remember asking my father for a dog when I was younger, but then, staring down at the ground in front of the dog's paws, I couldn't remember why I'd wanted one.

It came closer, still growling. If looking into its eyes was a sign of aggression, what was a sign of submission?

My breaths were loud, but steady. I sank to my knees. The last thing I wanted to do was lie down in front of it, closer to its teeth, but it was the best option I had. I stretched my legs out behind me and leaned on my elbows.

The dog crept closer and closer until I could feel its hot breath on my face. My heart was pounding.

It barked in my ear and I had to clench my teeth together to keep from screaming.

Something rough and wet touched my cheek. The growling stopped, and when I lifted my head to look at it again, it was panting. It licked my face and I frowned, sitting up on my heels. The dog propped a paw up on my knee and licked my chin. I laughed as I wiped away the drool.

“You're not such a vicious beast, are you?”

I got up slowly so I didn't startle it, but it appeared to be a completely different animal than the one I'd faced moments before. I stretched a hand out carefully, so I could draw it back if I needed to. The dog nudged it with its head. I was suddenly glad I hadn't grabbed the knife.

I blinked, and when my eyes opened, a child stood across the room wearing a white dress. She stretched out both hands and squealed happily. “Puppy!”

As she ran towards the dog at my side, I opened my mouth to warn her, but I was too late. The dog turned. Instead of growling, it barked and snapped, and its muscles bunched up like coiled wire, about to pounce. I didn't think, I just jumped. I hurled my body on top of the dog, wrapping my arms around its thick neck.

My head hit the ground. The dog and the little girl were gone. Instead, I was alone in the testing room, now empty. I turned in a slow circle, but couldn't see myself in any of the mirrors. I pushed the door open and walked into the hallway, only it wasn't a hallway; it was a bus, and all of the seats were taken.

I stood in the aisle and held onto a pole, same as I had when I had let Caleb have my seat. Sitting near me was a man with a news paper. I couldn't see his face over the top of the paper, but I could see his hands. They were scarred, like he was burned, and clenched around the paper like he wanted to crumple it up.

“Do you know this guy?” He asked. He tapped the picture on the front page of the newspaper. The headline read: “Brutal Murderer Finally Apprehended”. I stared at the word 'murderer’. It had been a long time since I had read the word, but even its shape filled me with dread.

In the picture beneath the headline was a young man with a plain face and a beard. I felt like I did know him, though I couldn't remember how. And at the same time, I felt like it would be a bad idea to tell the man that.

“Well?” There was anger in his voice. “Do you?”

A very, very bad a idea. My heart pounded and I clutched the pole to keep my hands from shaking and giving me away. If I told him I knew the man from the article, something awful would happen to me. But I could convince him that I didn't. I could clear my throat and shrug my shoulders - but I would be lying.

I cleared my throat.

“Do you?” He repeated.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Well?”

A shudder went through me. My fear was irrational, but he reminded me of the men from my accident. “Nope,” I said, my voice casual. “No idea who he is.”

He stood and, finally, I saw his face. He wore dark glasses and his mouth was bent into a snarl. His cheek was rippled with scars, like his hands. He leaned close to my face. His breath smelled like cigarettes. Not real, I reminded myself. He's not real.

“You're lying,” he said. “You're lying!”

“I am not.”

“I can see it in your eyes.”

I pulled myself up straighter. “You can't.”

“If you know him,” he said in a low voice. “You could save me. You could save me!”

I narrowed my eyes. “Well,” I said, setting my jaw. “I don't.”


End file.
